FTSE 100 YESTERDAY: Nautilus Minerals up on takeover talk

The first hostile takeover bid of 2013 hit dealers’ screens yesterday and was for a Toronto-based company which hopes to develop the world’s first underwater gold mine off Papua New Guinea.

Nautilus Minerals soared to 51.4p before closing 11.25p better at 40p after nosey Canadian investor Michael Bailey launched a £148million offer for the company.

Nautilus said it had had no contact with Bailey who apparently is an experienced investor and algorithmic trader who is a former member of a proprietary trading group, called the Band of Scoundrels, that made more than £80million by shorting Citigroup in October 2008.

Bailey’s name cropped up in February 2010 when he launched an unsuccessful bid to buy diamond miner Vaaldiam Resources.

As sporadic bouts of profit-taking
left Afferro Mining 0.75p easier at 94.75p, the boys in dark glasses
said they remain confident that the iron ore mining group’s days of
independence are numbered.

Already in receipt of an approach
from International Mining and Infrastructure Corporation, Afferro has
also been locked in exclusive talks with an as yet un-named mining
group, which could lead to another offer.The deadline is this week-end.

Word is the mystery bidder is Rio
Tinto, 27.5p easier at 3547p, which is willing to pay around 150p a
share to gain control of the West Africa focused group.

Central Asian oil and gas company
Roxi Petroleum rocketed 2p, or 94 per cent, to 4.12p after
Kazakhstan-based businessman and investor Kairat Satylganov acquired a
37.5 per cent stake in the company at 7p a share.

Satylganov is the former chairman of two of the largest Kazakh banks, Halyk Bank and ATF Bank.

Mobile phone giant Vodafone, 2.75p better at 162.4p, did its best to
keep the Footsie in positive territory amid growing speculation that
Verizon could soon buy out its stake in its Verizon Wireless joint
venture.

But when Wall Street traded 60 points
lower at the outset ahead of the fourth-quarter reporting season which
Alcoa kicked off yesterday, the elite London index drifted to close
10.95 points lower at 6,053.63.

The FTSE 250 shed 86.98 points to 12635.01. The Dow was down 55.44 points to 13,328.85 by the closing bell.

Drugs group Shire jumped 49p to 1963p
after agreeing to buy Lotus Tissue Repair, a US biotech company
developing the first treatment for a rare genetic disorder that causes
extremely fragile skin and recurrent blisters.

Ahead of today’s Christmas trading statement, J Sainsbury’s rose 7.3p to
339p after market researcher Kantar Worldpanel forecast that Britain’s
third-biggest supermarket chain posted the highest sales growth of the
major grocers in the run up to Christmas and was the only one to
increase market share.

It says Sainsbury’s saw sales growth of 3.4 per cent, edging its market
share up by 0.1 per cent points to 17.1 per cent.

According to Kantar, rival Tesco saw sales growth of 2.9pc but its
market share dripped 0.1 percentage points to 30.5 per cent. Its shares
firmed 2.2p to 351.5p ahead of tomorrow’s festive season update.

Sellers dragged African Barrick Gold
91.9p lower to 352.1p on hearing parent company Barrick Gold is no
longer in discussion with China National Gold over the sale of its 75
per cent stake in ABG.

Dealers had pinned their hopes on an
offer in the region of 550p a share.
Investec advised clients to sell Tullow Oil ahead of its trading and
operation statement on Friday and many did. The close was 46p lower at
1225p.

Analyst Brian Gallagher says the
group’s production profile has noticeably shifted to the right over the
last 18 months. He now estimates that it may not meaningfully maintain
production above 100,000 barrels of oil per day until 2018.

BAE Systems edged up 1.3p to 351.6p after the defence group was selected
as one of the prime contractors to provide software and system
engineering services to the US Army Communications Electronics Command.

It comes hard on the heels of its
£2.5billion deal to supply 12 Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft and eight
Hawk training jets to Oman.
Oil and gas producer Nostra Terra edged up 0.04p to 0.58p after
beginning production at two wells in the Chisholm Trail Prospect in
Oklahoma.